Simplice Ribouem and Tia-Clair Toomey are Australian weightlifting’s oddest couple

SIMPLICE Ribouem and Tia-Clair Toomey are Australian weightlifting’s oddest couple. At 94kgs, one is a powerhouse. While the other must shed weight to be 58kgs by competition.

Simplice Ribouem and Tia-Clair Toomey: Australia’s odd pair. Picture: Alex Coppel.

AUSTRALIAN weightlifting’s odd pair Simplice Ribouem and Tia-Clair Toomey are hungry for success in Rio this week, but Ribouem is literally starving.

Ribouem, a 94kg powerhouse and Commonwealth Games champion, says he’s finding it hard to get a decent feed since arriving in Brazil.

Toomey on the other hand, is a pocket rocket and is trying desperately to shed 1kg to make her 58kg weigh-in by the time competitions begins on Monday.

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“I can’t say the food is good or bad – but it depends the aisle you go into,” Ribouem said.

“When you go into the big men’s food (area) it’s very busy, people are eating 24/7 but sometimes when you finish your training session it’s already gone.

“The big guys are eating 5-10 times a day, I eat a lot and you have to because the more you burn the more you eat.

“The best one is to come to a casual dinner, you’d find good food, but I only eat what I know because I don’t want to get a sore stomach.”

Simplice Ribouem is hungry for success.

Despite this, Ribouem has resisted any urge to go to McDonalds inside the village and said his expectations hadn’t changed for when his competition starts on August 13. He’s hoping to lift 205kg in the clean and jerk and 165kg in the snatch.

“My expectation is to do my best and push the limit,” he said.

“It’s very exciting because I’ve tried to make (the Games) twice and injury has stopped me, this time I took my time to prepare properly even though I was sick last year.”

Toomey, fresh from a silver medal in the CrossFit world games last month, is also making her Olympic debut in Rio.

“I am just looking forward to competition, I’m at the stage of cutting weight and any food and all the smells are getting to me, so I can’t wait to weigh-in and get ready,” she said.

“Sim (Simplice) is easily losing weight but I’m a bit different, I’ve got to cut back to 58kg and if you overindulge just a bit you can easily gain weight.

“I generally train about 2kg over and slowly strip it, just when it comes to portion sizes I try to make sure they’re getting smaller but still feeding my body with the right nutrients.”